boyutpedia Chapter 13 Shocks the Martial Arts Club
Chapter 13 Shocks the Martial Arts Club
Three days after the college entrance examination ended, the office building of the Examination Department of the Martial Arts Department of the Huaxia Federation was brightly lit all night.
All the martial arts exam results from across the country were compiled here in just two days, with data from millions of candidates flooding into the Examination Authority's data center like rivers flowing into the sea.
Every piece of data undergoes three rounds of review: initial review by the provincial examination authority, review by the regional examination center, and final review by the headquarters examination department.
Three checkpoints ensure that no number is wrong.
At this time of year, the headquarters lobby is usually the busiest place.
The scores of the top scorers from each province will be projected onto a large central screen in turn. Dozens of officials, experts, and martial arts elders will sit around a conference table and analyze and compare the martial spirit level, strength data, and boxing skills of each top scorer.
Debates are common because the top scorers in each province are all strong, and each person has their own advantages and characteristics. Who should be the national top scorer is never a simple choice.
Chen Beiwang, the national champion two years ago, possessed a level-two martial spirit and a strength of 2150 jin, and had perfected the second level of the Returning Mountain Fist. Chu Feng, the national champion last year, also possessed a level-two martial spirit and a strength of 2130 jin, and had also mastered a low-grade Xuan-level fist technique.
The two men, who were only 20 pounds apart, argued for two whole hours in the meeting room over who would win the top prize.
But this year is different.
The atmosphere in the conference hall became extremely strange from the moment the first piece of data was projected onto the screen.
No one argued, no one debated, and there was hardly any whispering. Most people's eyes were fixed on a certain number on the big screen, frozen there in a contradictory posture of disbelief and reluctance to look away.
That's the data from exam room number nine in the Jiangcheng exam district of Jiangnan Province.
Candidate Name: Lin Fan. Martial Spirit: Undetermined. Strength Score: 3000 jin (approximately 1500 catties).
A middle-aged man dressed in a dark blue warrior's robe was the first to speak at the conference table. He slammed the documents in his hand onto the table with a crisp thud.
"Was this result transmitted incorrectly? Did they add an extra zero to 300 jin?"
Another person next to him chimed in, his brow furrowed so deeply it could trap a fly: "3000 jin is outrageous. Last year, Chu Feng only weighed 2130 jin, so he weighs almost 900 jin more than Chu Feng."
The power of the Body Refinement Realm has an upper limit. This isn't a matter of talent, but rather a matter of the body's capacity to withstand it.
"Could it be a malfunction of the instrument? The force gauge in Jiangnan Province is the K10 model, right? Although the K10 is highly accurate, it has a history of malfunctions."
I remember there was a similar incident in South China three years ago. The rune array in a K10 test got damp, causing a 700-pound student to score 1500.
"If it's just a malfunction, that's fine. But the real fear is—" The speaker didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood what he meant. The real fear was human intervention. Cheating on the college entrance exam wasn't unprecedented. Although it was always caught, people still took the risk every time.
"Check the surveillance footage."
An elderly man with gray hair stood up from the head seat at the conference table.
His name is He Yunshan, the director of the Martial Arts Examination Department, a peak-level Earth-level martial artist. He has worked in the Examination Department for nearly thirty years, experienced countless college entrance examinations, and handled data on tens of millions of candidates.
His voice wasn't loud, but the conference room fell silent instantly.
"Pull up the surveillance footage from exam room number nine and project it onto the big screen."
The technicians operated the control panel quickly, and a few seconds later, an image appeared on the large screen. The image quality was clear, the angle was correct, and the position of the No. 7 force gauge was exactly in the center of the image.
A boy wearing a white T-shirt walked out of the line and steadily walked towards the force measuring instrument.
"Is this Lin Fan?" someone asked in a low voice.
No one answered, because the movement on screen was too fast. The boy stood in front of the force gauge, took a deep breath, clenched his right fist—and then threw a punch.
测力仪的受力板剧烈震颤，显示屏上的数字飞速攀升：1000、1500、2000、2500、3000。数字稳稳地停在了3000。
The hall was silent for about three seconds.
Then things exploded.
"That's impossible!" A middle-aged official stood up, his chair sliding back half a meter because of the force of his knees. "3000 jin in one punch?"
Did you see the range of motion in his upper body? With a reaction force of 3000 jin (1500 catties), his spine should have withstood at least twice that force, but look at his waist—it didn't budge!
"Look at his breathing again. He only adjusted his breathing once when he was preparing to throw a punch. He didn't repeatedly gather his strength, didn't retract his fist to help, and didn't even make a sound. This is very abnormal." Another expert who was well-versed in martial arts theory also put down the documents in his hand.
"Has the surveillance been sped up?"
"Is the footage spliced together?"
A cacophony of doubts arose, the murmurs in the meeting room growing louder and louder. Everyone, drawing on their own professional expertise, found something amiss. 3000 jin (approximately 1500 catties) was simply too large, far beyond what anyone with basic martial arts knowledge could easily accept.
He Yunshan remained silent. He crossed his arms, his gaze still fixed on the large screen, not participating in any discussion, simply watching the images.
In the video, the boy walks to the second force measuring device. One punch, 3032 jin (1500 catties). The third, 3015 jin (1500 catties). The fourth, 3033 jin (1500 kg). He punches all ten force measuring devices in the examination room, with the lowest being 3000 jin (1500 catties) and the highest being 3050 jin (1550 catties).
He Yunshan lowered his arm, turned to face the people around the conference table, and said a sentence.
"This young man did not cheat."
The entire room fell silent.
"The Jiangnan Provincial Examination Authority conducted an on-site verification of all ten force measuring instruments as soon as the results were uploaded. The rune array of each instrument was intact, without any signs of dampness, wear, or human alteration."
He Yunshan's voice was calm and unhurried, but every word was like a nail driven into a table: "The surveillance video has undergone triple verification by the technical department. It has not been spliced, spliced, or modified. Every frame on the screen is a true account of what happened."
He picked up a document from the table, opened it, and found it filled with detailed data on every punch thrown by every examinee in examination room number nine.
"The data curves from all ten instruments are continuous. Every punch Lin Fan throws, the force curve, the peak force, and the attenuation slope are all within the normal range of physical laws."
That means he didn't cheat, didn't use any drugs, and didn't rely on any external forces—he achieved this result purely through his own fists.
Silence fell over the meeting room.
The silence lasted a long time. No one questioned the failure rate of the instruments or the reliability of the monitoring anymore, because He Yunshan had plugged all the technical loopholes.
Their silence wasn't out of resentment or a desire to stop arguing, but rather because they had to accept a result that left them breathless in the face of undeniable facts: this year's national martial arts champion possessed a strength of 3000 jin (1,500 catties).
A middle-aged martial artist with a thick beard broke the silence first, putting his pen on the table, leaning back in his chair, and slowly exhaling.
"monster."
This word was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, and ripples spread out rapidly in circles.
"The limit of the Body Refinement Realm has always been considered to be around 2500 jin. Chu Feng's achievement of 2130 jin last year was the best result in the past ten years."
3000 jin (1,500 catties) – I searched through all the college entrance examination records since the founding of the Huaxia Federation and couldn't find that number. The official in charge of the Examination Department's database pushed up his black-rimmed glasses.
"It's not just a college entrance exam record. Do you know what 3000 jin means in the history of martial arts? The average strength of a formal martial artist in the early stage of Qi Condensation Realm is about 5000 jin. This kid's strength is already equivalent to more than half of a Qi Condensation Realm martial artist, and he hasn't even condensed his true qi yet."
Once he breaks through to the Qi Condensation Realm in university and receives the boost from his true qi, his strength will double. At that point, not only will early-stage Qi Condensation Realm warriors be unable to easily suppress him, but even mid-stage Qi Condensation Realm warriors might not be able to easily defeat him.
Upon hearing this, several officials gasped in shock.
He Yunshan turned to look at the big screen, which showed Lin Fan's back as he pulled back his fist after throwing the last punch.
The boy in white stood in front of the force measuring instrument, calmly withdrawing his fist amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, his demeanor as serene as if he had simply taken a lap around the playground.
"It seems that this year's national champion will be this young man named Lin Fan."
No one objected. Not a single voice jumped out to say, "Our province's top scorer can still compete." Because in the face of 3000 jin (1,500 catties), all arguments became meaningless. Last year's top scorer, Chu Feng, weighed 2130 jin (1,565 catties), 870 jin (435 catties) short; the year before, Chen Beiwang weighed 2150 jin (1,500 catties), 850 jin (425 catties) short.
This is not a comparison of the same magnitude; it is a crushing defeat, a precipitous crushing defeat.
"Report the results," He Yunshan said. Then he added, with a hint of expectation in his tone that he himself didn't realize, "Also, get Lin Fan's file. I want to see what kind of school and what kind of teachers could produce such a student."
……
At the same time that the Martial Arts Department headquarters was making waves over his achievement, Lin Fan was lying on his small bed, which was only 1.2 meters wide, fast asleep.
Sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the curtains, warmly illuminating his face. He rolled over, burying his face in the pillow, then rolled over again before reluctantly opening his eyes.
The clock on the wall reads 7:30 in the morning. This is the first time he's slept in since the college entrance exam ended. Sleeping until this time is already his limit. He's forced his biological clock, which usually goes off at 5 a.m. every morning, back down by two hours.
He sat up, stretched, and his spine creaked and cracked about ten times from top to bottom, like a string of firecrackers. It was an indescribable feeling of comfort.
While washing up, he looked at himself in the mirror. The person in the mirror was a little thinner than a month ago, with a sharper jawline, but also firmer muscle lines. The veins on his arms were faintly visible under the skin, like a carefully drawn map.
He clenched his fist, feeling the abundant blood and energy flowing through his bones, and felt very at ease.
Breakfast was soy milk and fried dough sticks made by Zhou Lan. Lin Jianguo had already gone to work at the factory. Before leaving, he left a note on the table with four words written crookedly: "Son, you're awesome." The note was weighed down by a clean apple, which still had water droplets on it, as Zhou Lan had just washed it.
Lin Fan folded the note and put it in the drawer, ate the apple and drank the soy milk, and then sat down in front of the computer.
The college entrance exam results won't be released for a while, and the cut-off scores and admission notices won't be until the end of the month. This "prelude to summer vacation" is the most leisurely time for all graduating high school seniors, but for Lin Fan, every day is precious. 3000 jin is just a starting point, not the end. In this world where martial arts reign supreme, his journey has only just begun.
He opened the Martial Arts Forum and skillfully entered his account and password. The Martial Arts Forum was the largest martial arts exchange platform in the country, where martial artists from all over the country discussed cultivation insights, shared combat experiences, and posted information about monsters.
The forum is open to all formal martial artists, and prospective martial artists can also log in to some sections through real-name authentication, so high school seniors are not uncommon here.
But Lin Fan wasn't here for idle chatter.
He found a collection of essential posts in the "Basic Combat Teaching" section of the forum, which included hundreds of combat teaching videos, covering all the practical combat knowledge needed by a martial artist in the Body Refinement Realm, from the most basic boxing techniques to complex body movements.
The poster was a retired military instructor, a level-one martial artist, whose ID was "Iron Bone," and he had a very high reputation on the forum. Lin Fan spent an hour going through all the best posts from beginning to end, selecting a few videos that were most suitable according to his learning progress, before finally clicking on the first video tutorial.
The video was filmed in a training hall. Two martial artists are standing in the center of a mat, one wearing red protective gear and the other wearing blue. They assume a fighting stance and attack simultaneously, both using the Returning Mountain Fist.
Lin Fan had already mastered the third level of the Returning Mountain Fist, and he was intimately familiar with every movement and the way each layer of force was stacked. However, the Returning Mountain Fist performed by the two people in the video was completely different from the one he had practiced.
The training method involves strictly following the standard movements, with each start, turn, and retraction of the fist having a fixed posture and rhythm, as precise and neat as calisthenics.
But the playing styles are different
The Returning Mountain Fist technique has no fixed rhythm or fixed sequence of moves.
In one move, the red side started with the first move and then turned around with the third move, skipping the second move in between. The red side then slammed into the blue side's chest, and the red side's elbow, carrying nine layers of force, slammed down, sending the blue side flying instantly.
This is the difference between training methods and fighting methods.
The training method involves strengthening muscles and bones, improving blood circulation, and refining the body. The goal is to accumulate the power of the boxing techniques into muscle memory, ensuring that each layer of power is precisely applied to the intended location. It is about "training yourself."
The fighting style is to defeat the enemy standing in front of you. The enemy will not follow your rhythm and will not wait for you to finish a set of punches before retaliating.
The fighting style emphasizes speed, accuracy, and ruthlessness. It aims to end the battle with the least amount of time, the shortest path, and the most effective force. It is about "attacking others".
Lin Fan was completely focused, his eyes glued to the screen. The red team's elbow strike, the blue team's block, the red team's change of move, the blue team's fall—every detail of the movement was automatically broken down into slow motion in his mind.
He saw the shift of the center of gravity when the red side turned to the side, saw the rhythm of the nine layers of force bursting out in an instant at the tip of the elbow, and saw that the blue side's defense was broken when the angle of the arm was deviated by less than five degrees when blocking.
Once.
He requested a replay.
Twice.
He then requested a replay.
He closed his eyes after repeating it three times.
The images in his mind began to play out automatically. The moves of the red side were repeated in his mind over and over again, from the start to the finish, from the accumulation of force to the transfer of center of gravity. Every detail was as clear as if it were imprinted in his mind.
Half an hour later, he opened his eyes, stood up, and slowly threw a punch in the room.
This punch is different from the Returning Mountain Fist I practiced before.
It has no fixed starting stance, no standard retraction position, but it is faster, shorter, and more powerful.
This is the fighting style of Huishanquan: fierce. It emphasizes the word "fierce," going forward relentlessly and never stopping until the defense is broken.
Lin Fan sat back down at the computer and opened the next video. The new video was no longer a tutorial on a single punching technique, but a combination of body movement and punching techniques.
The martial artist in the video used a footwork that Lin Fan had never seen before, nimbly dodging under the shadow of his opponent's punches, each step landing on the gaps in his opponent's punches, and then seizing the moment when his opponent's strength was exhausted to counterattack.
This took another two hours.
Lin Fan cooked lunch himself—Zhou Lan wouldn't be back from the factory at noon, and there was some fried rice she had left in the refrigerator that morning. Lin Fan heated it up, ate it in a few bites, and then sat back down in front of the computer.
The more he watched, the more energized he became. The various practical skills in the video were like puzzle pieces automatically assembling in his mind, each piece fitting perfectly into its rightful place.
Most test takers can only watch these practical instructional videos on the forum for entertainment, because their own boxing skills are not up to par. Their training methods are not even up to standard, let alone their fighting techniques.
But Lin Fan is different. His boxing skills have reached a level that even some martial arts instructors might not be able to achieve. Standing at such a level, learning fighting techniques becomes much easier.
It's like a pyramid with a solid foundation; anything added on top will fit perfectly.
Over the next few days, Lin Fan's life developed a fixed rhythm.
I get up at five in the morning and go to the usual spot in the neighborhood to practice boxing. I can't forget how to practice Huishanquan and Longxingquan, and I need to continue to refine my qi and blood.
After returning in the morning, I opened the martial arts forum and continued watching practical teaching videos, thoroughly understanding the techniques of Huishanquan, Longxingquan, and the coordination of body movements and fist techniques.
In the afternoon, I first watched the video and then practiced it. I found a quiet corner in the neighborhood and put what I had learned into practice, move by move.
In the evening, I went back to the forum and browsed the latest featured posts to see if there was any new content that suited me and that I could learn from.
In just a few days, he mastered both the techniques of Returning Mountain Fist and Dragon Form Fist.
In his hands, these two boxing styles were no longer just moves from instructional videos, but had become his own, adaptable to the battlefield situation and not bound by fixed routines.
But he knew that wasn't enough. Watching videos and practicing on his own was ultimately just empty talk.
True skill in combat can only be tested in real combat. Just like swimming, watching the breakdown of movements a hundred times on land is not as effective as splashing around in the water once.
He needs to find a real place where he can actually fight, find an opponent who can spar with him, and smash his fist into real protective gear to see if the punch can break through the defense or be blocked.
Lin Fan shut down his computer, changed his clothes, and went out. He remembered seeing on a martial arts forum a while ago that several registered martial arts schools in Jiangcheng offered practical training grounds with professional protective gear and sparring partners, and the fees weren't expensive.
One of them had good reviews and was located about two blocks away from his home.
He's going to take a look.